The Age of Angels and the Birth of Christ

Angels were created to fulfill a role in the Cosmos.

Hebrews 1:14Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

Daniel 3:28Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set aside the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.

Angels even have specific jobs like destroying angels.

Psalm 78:49He let loose on them his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress, a company of destroying angels.

…or choir singers…

Revelation 4:8And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”

The phrase of “enthroned on the cherubim,” is also found 2 Sam. 6:2and Isaiah 37:16.

The ark is the throne of God, a chariot of angels as described in 1 Chronicles 28:18also, his plan for the golden chariot of the cherubim that spread their wings and covered the ark of the covenant of the LORD.

Ezekiel 1:4-28describes a scene in which God’s actual chariot is made of multiple angels who first look like angelic beings and then like wheels with spokes, etc.

Angels have jobs. They are made in the image of God as servants who can travel between heaven and earth.

Even Satan had a job. And though fallen, His primary function is found in some of the key verses about him.

Genesis 3:1-6. Job 1:6-12. Matthew 4:1-11. Luke 22:31-34.

Satan shakes the tree to see what falls out….

Satan’s job is a kind of Catechizer. We find him questioning Eve about the law. One conception of His fall that I think makes the most sense is that, given that he was the most regal and glorious of the angels, satan was actual jealous of man and used his job not build it up but to undermine man’s faith. Testing the faith of the saints may have been his job, initially, he used it has an opportunity to sow deceit and doubt.

Ezekiel 28:12“Thus says the Lord GOD: “You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty…. Ezekiel 28:16-17In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violencein your midst, and you sinned… Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground;

In the abundance of his trade he was filled with violence, he corrupted his wisdom for the sake of his splendor. Jesus says in John 8:44 that Satan was a murderer from the first.

Satan couldn’t believe that God would make a little mudblood the Lord’s regent on earth. So out of jealousy he sought to murder the King, Adam, trapping Adam in willful disobedience as a kind of coup d’état; hoping to attain the throne for himself.

The strategy seems to have worked. Jesus calls Satan the ruler of this world in John 16:11.

Satan’s strategy is too trick and subvert all to attain glory for Himself. Jesus didn’t think his divinity was something to be grasped but Satan thinks power and glory are worth grasping through murder, trickery and lies.

1 Peter 5:8Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

2 Corinthians 11:14 Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

Satan is cunning, wiser than any other beast. His wisdom is renown but twisted. He disguises Himself.

In fact, it’s no shock that both the false prophets Mohammed and Joseph Smith were visited by the angel of light, who gave them their special revelation.

Islam and Mormonism were founded by the trickery of Satan, perpetrated on men all too ready to have him as their benefactor.

Because there is some benefit to having a demon as a friend, as a source of inside information, protection, power and guidance. Islam and Mormonism are doing quite well for themselves.

Fallen angels have always made themselves available as a source of power and enticed men to set them up in godlike reverence and awe.

In mythology and history there really has always been some source of power, some personality behind the “gods,” – demons – fallen angels.

Deuteronomy 32:16–17They stirred [God] to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded.

1 Corinthians 10:19–22… I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons…

In the Fall, Adam fell from his throne elevating Satan to a position of authority and power unleashing evil in the land well beyond individual sinners. Other angels too. Angels were elevated and tried to combat evil, taking the roles that were meant to be fulfilled by man.

Genesis 3:24He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Exodus 26:31“And you shall make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. It shall be made with cherubim skillfully worked into it.

Daniel 12:1“At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people.

Chief among these angels who are at war with the demons and unbelief is the Angel of the Lord Judges 2:1–5; Joshua 5:13–15; 2 Kings 19:32–35.

The prince of Israel. The angel of the Lord is Christ Himself. The pre-incarnate Christ manifests Himself as the angel of the Lord.

In the age of angels, the second person of the Trinity appeared as an Angel, because amongst the principalities and powers of the air, the war raged for supremacy of earth.

Man fell. The angels were meant to push back the demons and protect Israel and the revelation of God until the promise of a dragon stomping son would appear.

But we find in Matthew 4, Satan offering all the kingdoms of earth to Jesus. Satan styled himself an emperor, offering to Jesus what Jesus came to seek; the nations. And all the nations in the first century were pagan; under the control of demons; not gods.

Now, how did the Michal and the Angel of the Lord fail in the age of angels? How did Satan win all those nations?

Hebrews 9:22…without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

No matter what good angels do, they cannot shed their own blood own because they don’t bleed. No created thing can shed enough blood to pay God back, to assuage the wrath of a holy God. Not bulls, goats, sheep or angels.

Man can’t win back His place and against angels he can’t out trick, outsmart or out fight them. The good angels can’t overpower them alone without faithful men and there are no faithful men. No man can keep the law or keep faith with God or keep faith with the Angels.

Men kept falling under the sway of fallen angels, idols, no-gods and false religions.

Satan thought he had won. Satan saw man as a spent force, a race that is hopeless and broken. Bent and weak. No help would come from among them.

And the last thing the arrogant and proud Satan could imagine; the angel who became a demon for the sake of his own splendor – He could not fathom the most magnificent and perfect and splendid God laying aside his glory to become a mudblood.

This is why God is a mystery to Satan and why Satan hates everything about God. God cares more for others than His own glory.

If you love something other than yourself, then you will lay everything down for your beloved. And that is the greatest glory.

Hebrews 2:9But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Hebrews 2:14–15Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

The first Adam fell, elevating Satan. The second Adam fells Satan and elevates man. And He did it by the shedding of His own blood. To restore the cosmos to their proper order.

1 Peter 1:10–12… It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

If the greatest love is that a man lay His life down for His friend, then we know the love of God better than any angel. They can only observe it form the outside. They can only ponder what the great mystery of Christ’s incarnation and death and resurrection might mean becasuse they cannot feel the love of God like we can. This salvation. This restoration of the cosmos.

Adam fell lower than angels and Christ descended down to us below angels so that He might elevate us, not just to Eden, but higher to the very throne of Heaven where we dwell with Him, united by love to the life of Triune God.

These demons who have held man captive through false religion, sin and death will be judged by restored men. We rule and reign in Christ, even the angelic hosts.

Your bible lies open before you and by the Holy Spirit you can comprehend the Love of God of which angels long to look. God has elevated your life and raised you into he cosmic story of His love.

That is the meaning of your marriage, and childrearing and vocation. You are kings and queens in Narnia and that splendor makes your folding laundry regal and noble. It makes wiping noses and bottoms and changing tires and teaching phonics and taking wife on dates the things of nobility.

It makes mudbloods like you the treasure of Heaven. It makes you free form Satan and His minions and all the terror they may throw at you – all nonsense.

And why?

Mark 3:27But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.

Jesus came to bend the cosmos back into shape. To heal the hierarchy and put man and angels back in their proper place.

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

Author: Michael Kloss

There is a Sunday conscience, as well as a Sunday coat; and those who make religion a secondary concern put the coat and conscience carefully by to put on only once a week. - Charles Dickens
View all posts by Michael Kloss